Tag Archives: graphic design

When my friends at RetroNuevo asked me if I’d adapt my cockerel design to make vintage style tags for their hand crafted tapas boards I agreed with relish (pun intended).

I’ve long been an admirer of their magic mixing of reclaimed and modern materials with paint effects to make marvellous muebles (= furniture in Spanish)…

…as shown in these drawer details above and right.

Making the Tapas Boards

The wood was ‘harvested’ from century old wild Andalucian olive wood (acebuche) which had been felled naturally by the wind. No live trees were harmed in this process!

The tapas boards were lovingly hand-hewn from hefty planks, each one unique in shape and grain.

They’re ideal for cutting and presenting food – tapas style, I also see them asworks of art in their own right.

Making the Tags

These are the steps I took to make the cockerel side of the tag in Photoshop:

Scan a luggage tag to make a template in Photoshop

Cut out the rivet and surrounding circle and place in separate new layers, make sure the rivet hole is the same size as the hole punch and ‘age’ the surrounding circle using scanned wax seal image

Place the cockerel image above the background layer and below the rivet layers

Deepen the colour of the cockerel image by duplicating the layer and changing the mode to ‘multiply’. Scan a vintage letter and place it above the cockerel layers in ‘multiply’ mode to add interesting stains

Add the RetroNuevo logo

Put a broken layer of white behind the logo to make it stand out

‘Age’ the edges of the tag by adding extra layers of parts of the vintage letter in ‘multiply’ mode

These are the steps I took to make the reverse side of the tag in Photoshop:

Scan a luggage tag to make a template in Photoshop, see above

Add the rivet and surround as above

Scan a vintage receipt, cut and paste lines in layers

Add the scanned vintage letter in a ‘multiply’ / ‘soft light’ mode layer as above to add texture and colour

Cut and paste the border from the vintage receipt. Download a vintage stamp from the correct era and add in two layers – multiply + soft light

Add text and RetroNuevo logo

Age the edges of the tag by adding extra layers of parts of the vintage letter in ‘multiply’ mode as above

The double sided tags were printed locally on 300g watercolour paper to give them good heft and texture.

They were then cut, perforated with a hole punch and had their cut edges ‘aged’ with a brown felt tip pen before being strung with rustic twine.

These gorgeous and versatile boards will soon be on sale with other delightful RetroNuevo items such as wardrobes, doors, benches, vintage crates, fittings and other reclaimed treaures at the pop-up shop in San Ambrosio, near Vejer on the 9th, 10th and 11th of December 12-3pm .

I recently designed the logo above for Alquimia (Alchemy in Spanish) , a magical full moon fine-dining and entertainment experience set against the beautiful natural backdrop of La Costa de la Luz in Andalusia.

The brief was to incorporate a tree and full moon theme with art nouveau style text as shown in the sketch I was given to work from (left) .

I duplicated the tree image and inverted the colours so that the moon and tree appear to shine in the night sky.

I can see all sorts of additional imagery in the finished design which reflects the mysterious nature of the event; bat, owl and dragonfly wings, the face of a fox, the figure of a woman, a chalice, a heart….

…I can;t wait for my first taste of the Alquimia experience tomorrow night, the menu alone promises many delights: